Celluloid – A New Collective on Filmmaking

“To make a film is easy; to make a good film is war. To make a very good film is a miracle.” – Alejandro Gonzalez.

To spark an interest in filmmaking in its students, The Bhawanipur Education Society College gave a new identity to one of its many collectives, the ‘Reels’ collective. Effective from 2023 onwards, the brand new Collective,‘Celluloid,’ was formed with the aim to provide aspiring future filmmakers with the knowledge and guidance in 10 crucial aspects of film-making like direction, production management, cinematography, and script writing, etc. The mentor of the collective, Mr. Suprovo Tagore, organized an initiative called ‘First Step Forward,’ a series of sessions attended by 30 and more students who will use the skills imparted to them to create a successful career in this field.

The first session was an induction session that took place on the 14th of June at the Placement Hall and aimed to introduce the students to the idea behind this collective. This meetup session started at 11:00 AM and ended at 1:00 PM as planned, with students eager to attend future sessions. The second session took place on the 27th of June in Society Hall from 11:00 AM to 1:00 PM. The audience was shown 4 short films: Doodlebug, Two, Chutney, and Ahalya. The ambiance of the location helped the audience immerse themselves in the experience and focus on the ideas that the films reflect. For the third session, students gathered in the inner space of the college to discuss and share their opinions on the 4 short films that they watched in the previous session. The highly interactive session allowed the students to discover others and their perspectives on filmmaking. Finally, the latest session that was held by Celluloid on the 7th of July at 4A, consisted of the screening of the movie ‘Baraka’, a one and half hour documentary film with no narrative and voice-over with a central theme of depicting how tragedy and vibrancy of life are both interconnected to the world.

With time, the collective, Celluloid has aims of expansion through more and more students taking an active part in it and learning the art of film-making. There are many more fun-filled sessions and events that this collective looks forward to hosting and organizing. But for now, the first batch of students who are part of Celluloid find themselves among the best mentors who plan to teach them how to materialize their unique perspectives into films and documentaries.

Reporter – Aniket Dasgupta